Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Smoking Chimney

Baxter avoided the insistence of her eyes by groping for a cigarette. “Want one, Sophie?”

“Yes.”

He handed her a cigarette, struck a match, and masked his eyes in a cloud of light blue smoke.

Sophie Pressman said: “I had no idea you were — well, that you’d go that far, Pelly.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Do I need to elaborate?”

Pelly Baxter smoked for several seconds in silence; then he said: “Let’s get this straight, Sophie.”

“I don’t think we need to. It’s a dangerous matter to discuss.”

Baxter might not have heard her. He said speculatively: “You’re a very remarkable personality. There’s something about you which fascinates men. I’m just wondering if it isn’t perhaps because your intervals of fire are followed by such a completely cold detachment.”

“Are you trying to psychoanalyse me?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Myself.”

“I thought it would swing around to you,” she said, “but go ahead.”

“I would,” Pelly said, choosing his words carefully, “have done almost anything for you — but not that.”

“Not what?”

“Not... well, you know what happened to Ralph.”

She met his eyes steadily. “You don’t have to admit it to me if you don’t want to, Pelly, but let’s not try deceiving each other.”

Baxter said: “All right, let’s be frank. I didn’t know he’d had detectives working for him. I didn’t know anything about those pictures or about that report until you told me over the telephone. At that time I didn’t have any idea where Ralph could be located. So far as I was concerned, Petrie was simply a dot on the map... I never felt more helpless in my life, particularly so when I realized that you weren’t going to take it lying down, but intended to do something about it... However, you didn’t take me into your confidence.

“Then when I heard what had happened, I realized— Well, looking at it from your viewpoint, I consider it was self-defence. Your life, your happiness, your reputation, everything that meant anything to you was at stake. You—”

“Wait a minute, Pelly,” she interrupted, without raising her voice. “Are you trying to tell me that I did it?”

He said, choosing his words carefully: “I’m trying to tell you that I can appreciate what might have prompted you to take any action you did take, and it doesn’t lessen my feeling for you one bit.”

“Why do you do that, Pelly?”

“Do what?”

“Try to wriggle out from under and leave me holding the sack?”

His eyes shifted momentarily, then came back to hers. “Look here, Sophie, are you by any chance going to— Oh, I can’t say it. It sounds too terribly crude.”

“Go ahead and say it, Pelly.”

“Are you,” he blurted, “looking for a fall guy? Did you think that if anything went wrong, I’d — that my love for you — well, you know what I mean.”

She said: “Pelly, my dear, we’re both modern. I hope we’re both realists, despite the fact that we recognize the value of romance. I’m going to be perfectly frank with you. I know that you killed my husband. So far as I’m concerned, it’s not going to make any difference. Frankly, I think it was the only thing to do, but there’s no necessity for you to deceive me on that, and—”

“I tell you I didn’t,” Baxter blurted.

She smiled quiet refutation of his statement.

Baxter got to his feet. His voice was raised somewhat. “Personally,” he said, “I thought you were carrying things too far — altogether too damned far. There certainly were other ways of making a settlement, but—”

“Pelly,” she said with cold finality, “if you think something has gone wrong, and if you’re trying to push me out to the front as—”

“That’s just what I feel you’re trying to do to me .”

Her eyes were cold and hard. “That’s a side of you I hadn’t seen before, Pelly, my dear.”

He was past caring for external appearances now. “Try any of that stuff, my lady,” he said grimly, “and you’ll see a damn sight more of me that you haven’t seen. Don’t think I’m going to take any murder raps for you.”

They were standing now, facing each other, Pelly Baxter’s face angry and just a little frightened. Sophie Pressman was firm, cold, and very sure of herself.

“You know, Pelly,” Sophie said at length, “I could produce proof — if I had to.”

“Sophie, are you completely crazy?”

“I don’t think so, darling.”

“Well, you sound like it.”

She said: “You see, the police called last night to ask me a few questions.”

“Such as where you were at the time of the murder?”

“Don’t be silly, dear. Nothing like that. I’m a grief-stricken widow. They called to ask me if I could throw any light on what had happened, if there was any reason Ralph might have had for committing suicide.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them I knew of none, that his domestic life was happy, and his finances were very satisfactory.”

“What else?”

She said: “They showed me the gun and asked me if I could identify it, if I thought it was Ralph’s gun.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That I knew nothing whatever about his guns, that firearms always frightened me, and I had nothing whatever to do with them.”

“Well?”

“But,” she said, “I didn’t tell them that you were quite a collector of weapons and that this gun was yours .”

“Was mine , Sophie?”

“Yes, dear.”

“You’re crazy.”

“No,” she said. “It’s your gun, Pelly. A big gun with a very long barrel. I think they said it was either seven inches or seven and a half, I’ve forgotten which, and there was a little chip out of a corner near the end of the butt... You remember you were showing me your collection, and—”

“Good God!”

“Yes?” she asked quietly.

“Great heavens, I’d forgotten that,” Pelly said with an exclamation of dismay.

“Forgotten what, darling?”

“That Ralph borrowed that gun about a month ago. Remember when he went out on that deer-hunting trip? He said he wanted a revolver. I let him take that one, and he’s never returned it.”

“I wish you’d told me that in advance. Then I could have told the police that it was a gun my husband had taken with him on his camping trip. But you didn’t tell me... That’s what comes of not confiding in me.”

“Not confiding in you! ” he exclaimed. “You knew he had that gun! You knew it was mine. You followed him up to Petrie, killed him with it, and... and—”

“Don’t, darling,” she said. “It isn’t going to do you any good, trying to blame it on me. Because I won’t take it, you know, and that’s going to make things very, very difficult for you. Can they trace the gun to you — through the numbers I mean?”

He dropped into a chair, put his elbows on his knees, propped his chin in his hands, stared dejectedly at the floor, completely dismayed. “I don’t know,” he said, and then after a moment added: “Perhaps not. I picked that gun up at a dude ranch in Montana several years ago.”

“You’re doing that very nicely, Pelly. Have you rehearsed it?”

“Rehearsed what?”

“The act you’re putting on for the police. You don’t need to rehearse it any more. You’re perfect, darling, absolutely perfect. Don’t do it too much, or your performance might become too set.”

He said: “I might have known it would have come to something like this when I started playing around with you. You’re too damn cold-blooded... I suppose you wanted his insurance and couldn’t stand the notoriety incident to a divorce... No, the notoriety wouldn’t have bothered you so much. It’s the idea of being thrown out without any property. You broke up his home five years ago. You did it damned cleverly. You knew what you were after when you did it, and now I suppose—”